Quatuor Arod - String Quartet

BIOGRAPHY

Founded in 2013, the Quatuor Arod regularly performs in prestigious concert halls world-wide. These include the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berlin and Vienna Konzerthaus, the Vienna Musikverein, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Carnegie Hall, the Gulbenkian, the Stockholm Konzerthuset, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Oji Hall in Tokyo, the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the LSO St Lukes and the De Bijloke in Ghent. In addition, the quartet has appeared at numerous festivals, including Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Menton, La Folle Journée de Nantes, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau Musik Festival, Musikfest Bremen and the Prague Spring.

The Quatuor Arod regularly collaborates with artists such as Klaus Mäkelä, Thibaut Garcia, Alexandre Tharaud, Amihai Grosz, Gary Hoffmann, Julia, Veronika and Clemens Hagen, Maximilian Hornung, Timothy Ridout, Daniel Hope, Augustin Dumay and Kit Armstrong. In 2017, Quatuor Arod premiered the first string quartet by French composer Benjamin Attahir. This work was jointly commissioned by La Belle Saison, ProQuartet and Quatuor Arod. The Quartet is committed to promoting contemporary music and regularly commissions short pieces from young composers such as Thomas Enhco, Benjamin Attahir and Eugene Birman.

The Quatuor Arod records exclusively for the Erato/Warner Classics label. Their debut album, released in 2017, contains works by Mendelssohn. A second album, featuring the soprano Elsa Dreisig and dedicated to Mathilde Zemlinsky, appeared in 2019 and includes works by Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Webern. The following year, it won the Edison Klassiek award. Their album Schubert was released in 2020 to great public and critical acclaim. A new album featuring music by French composers such as Debussy, Ravel and Attahir was released in autumn 2023. Earlier the same year saw the release of Bruno Monsaingeon's documentary Ménage à Quatre, which follows the Quartet in its daily life and accompanies the musicians in a meeting with the composer György Kurtág. As part of their digital project A Journey through Harmony, a collection of Bach chorales will be released on streaming platforms. In addition, a new album with Haydn's six String Quartets Op. 76 will be released in autumn 2025.

In the 2025/26 season, the quartet will be ensemble in residence not only at the Mendelssohn House in Leipzig, but also alongside clarinettist Pierre Génisson in the chamber music programme ‘La Belle Saison’ at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. They will return to Flagey in Brussels, to Tenerife, The Hague, the Elbphilharmonie, the Gewandhaus and Wigmore Hall, among others. The ensemble will also perform at the Quartet Biennale at the Philharmonie in Paris and, together with Klaus Mäkelä, at the Quartet Biennale at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. With the Quatuor Danel they will appear at the Southbank Centre and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

The Quatuor Arod has benefited from the teaching of Mathieu Herzog, Jean Sulem, and the Artemis Quartet. They have also worked regularly with the Quatuor Ebène and the Quatuor Diotima. In 2016, the Quatuor Arod won First Prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Previously, they had been awarded first prizes at the Carl Nielsen International Competition of Copenhagen in 2015 and at the FNAPEC European Ensemble Competition in 2014. In 2016, they were HSBC laureates of the Académie du Festival d'Aix. In 2017, the Quartet was named “BBC New Generation Artist” for the 2017 to 2019 seasons, and in 2018 they were selected as ECHO Rising Star for the 2018/19 season.

Status: September 2025